My dad left Friday morning; I miss him. I had no one to help me through the day Friday, but I did have friends come spend time with me and help me out. Johanna even walked with me from my apartment to the school. I made it the whole way there - though I was exhausted by the end. I'll need a while before I feel safe making that trek alone, and quite a while before I'll be ready to make it there and back again.[...]

As previously mentioned, I'm stubborn, and in my stubbornness, I'm determined to learn to walk to school. Well, I'm determined to learn to walk in general, but goals are good. The apartment I have is, according to Google maps, less than three hundred meters from the school. It's a nice downhill slope all the way there. From experience walking up a ramp at REHAB with Alex, I was aware that my backside lacks the muscle strength required to push my body up inclines. I was concerned that I'd have a harder time walking from the school home to my apartment. Wouldn't do me much good to walk there and be stuck.[...]

I'm stubborn.

You may have figured that out even if you haven't met me yet, but I'm a particularly determined girl. My mother frequently joked that if I was a first born, I'd be an only child because I had such a wildly independent spirit that would not easily bend. My stubbornness is what helped me get to Germany in the first place, and I'll make it through because my stubbornness won't go away.[...]

REHAB Basel is a paradise for people in wheelchairs; they have smooth floors and handrails everywhere. Doorways are wide and counters have knee space underneath. Here in Kandern, that's not nearly the case. My bathroom is too narrow to even fit my wheelchair in, so I have to manage walking through the narrow space while holding my hands on either wall; showering is particularly difficult in the tiny space. In fact, right now, it's downright scary, but I know I'll eventually get used to it.[...]

The haunting round from RENT has been running through my head for weeks as I wonder, "Will I lose my dignity?" through this transition, through my return to the real world, through any number of difficulties. However, a different song pushed into my head as I thought of David returning the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. When his wife chastised him for dancing naked in the streets, David said, "I'll become even more undignified than this." The children's song I used to sing with the Port kids adds, "leave my pride by the side" to that line. [...]

I celebrated Mother's Day a week early in my desire not to miss the holiday. Mostly because I'm a space case, I emailed my mom happy wishes, and she replied along the lines of, "That's sweet, and a week early."[...]

Neil Gaiman says the sign of a good story is that you ask, "And then what happened?" That has nothing to do with my day really, but if think it's a nice bit of literary criticism. The phrase actually came to mind because as I was thinking about my day it seemed like a never ending disconnected list of exhausting events. [...]

A few weeks ago one of the therapists told me there was an annual gathering of patients from rehab clinics across Switzerland and invited me to go this year. "It's in the French speaking part of Switzerland, so it's a four hour drive away. Can you do that?" [...]

I'll be leaving here as an inpatient soon, but there's a lot of therapy still to do to engage and strengthen my muscles. This morning I got myself ready for an early physio session with Alex where she taught me some stretches and balancing to practice on my own. Shortly after that I headed to the kitchen to make cookies while another patient made lunch. I find the occupational therapists are hard to impress, and today was no exception as Isabelle insisted a try to walk around the kitchen with my sticks and push a cart with the ingredients where I needed them. I think the difficulty impressing them comes from the expectation that i should be able to do everything alone. They just ask me to do everything and don't help unless I ask. I really love it because it motivates me to achieve whatever they ask me to do. When I can't, they are gracious to me and help me work to meet the new goal. I did my best to stay out of the today chair while I prepared the cookies, but eventually I needed to sit down, and I was grateful for the short break as we ate our lunch because I had a hand bike group directly afterwards. Once we washed the dishes, I returned my sticks to my room and met the rest of the patients and therapists in the hand bike group outside.[...]

A couple weeks after my accident, I had an itch on my right thigh. Unfortunately, I have nerve damage there and can't sense scratching. The itch hasn't left for five months... I keep scratching, but nothing happens. It's unnerving. It's such a mundane thing, yet I'm so thrown off by it. Sometimes mundane things are unnerving.[...]